DAN SANTARELLI

Staff Writer

MASSILLON — The clock struck midnight for the cinderella story of the Lisbon Blue Devils as they fell to Dalton 44-30 in the Div. IV regional semifinal on Thursday at Massillon Perry High School.

“I wouldn’t want to do this with any other team,” Lisbon’s lone senior Alyssa Chestnut said. “We weren’t just a team anymore we became family.”

It was an especially emotional tournament exit for Devil coach Jamie Entrikin.

“To go back a little bit on the night of our first tournament game we buried my father and a few nights before we had calling hours,” Entrikin said. “All the girls came and it was very touching. I don’t know if that rallied them or relaxed them but something started clicking in these girls. We beat a good McDonald team and things just started to snowball in the right direction.”

Lisbon finished the season to remember 17-10.

Dalton is now 22-4 and will face Buckeye Central in the regional final on Saturday.

The young Lisbon squad came out of the first quarter with a 7-5 lead but failed to score in the second quarter and trailed 16-7 at the half.

“We knew how good of defensive team they were,” Entrikin said. “There were some buckets that they needed to convert on but they didn’t quit. This was a whole new experience on a new stage for them.”

The Blue Devils came within seven at 20-13 in the third quarter but the Bulldogs replied with back to back threes from Camille Beatty.

“Every time we would score they just kept hitting us back,” Chestnut said. “It felt like we couldn’t catch a break.”

The Blue Devils didn’t come within 10 points for the rest of the way as Dalton held at 27-17 at the end of the third quarter and outscored the Blue Devils 17-13 in the final quarter.

Lisbon was led by Izzy Perez with eight points with all eight of them coming in the final quarter.

Dalton’s Makenna Geiser was given the assignment of Lisbon’s leading scorer.

“Our first thing was to not let Izzy score,” Dalton head coach Katie Miller said. “We were hoping that (Geiser’s) length and speed would stop her.”

Maddie Liberati and Autmn Oehlstrom each had six points for the Blue Devils.

Dalton was led by Geiser with 15 points and Kristen Shoup with 14 points.

With the defeat, Entrikin said this game will be motivation for the next season for this team with all but one player returning.

“We are going to take this as a positive and a learning block,” Entrikin said. “We are going to go back and look at the film thinking man if we would’ve finished that layup or made that pass at the right time. Those are fundemental things we can get better at. With the way this group came together in the past few weeks there is no doubt in my mind they will be ready to start this journey again.”

Notes

¯ This is Dalton’s second straight trip to the regionals and they weren’t expecting the cinderella Blue Devil team as an opponent here.

“We scouted Jackson-Milton and McDonald so we weren’t sure who was going to come out that district,” Miller said. “Lisbon was definitely a better matchup than Valley Christian because they like to slow the game which plays to our style.”

¯ Lisbon’s last regional apperance was a 63-51 loss to Chippewa in the 1991 Div. III regional semifinals at Mount Union.

¯Lisbon is losing the lone senior in Chestnut.

“I think they everyone thought we wouldn’t do anything this year,” Chestnut said. “It was great to prove everyone wrong and keep going. The community support was great.”